Technical Field
This disclosure relates generally to computer storage elements, and more specifically to techniques for providing clock signals to these elements.
Description of the Related Art
Power associated with clock switching is typically a significant contributor to dissipated power in microprocessors and other types of integrated circuits. Clock gating is one technique used in many circuits for reducing dynamic power dissipation. Clock gating saves power by adding more logic to a circuit to prune the clock tree. Pruning the clock tree disables portions of the circuitry so that elements in them, such as flip-flops, do not have to switch states when not necessary. Switching states consumes power. When not being switched, the switching power consumption for a circuit element being clock gated may approach zero. Various techniques exist for performing clock gating.